Anyone tried a Wald 257 GB?

Has anyone tried one of the Wald 257 GB porteur style racks? There are no spec's on the Wald website, looks like a good inexpensive rack, but wondering how the quality is and how real life use has been... there is no weight rating to be found, so wondering how much weight this can handle. Thanks in advance...

Looks nicely made, and strong, for sure. Definitely heavier than a standard porteur rack like the Velo-Orange or others, but not enormously so. My biggest concern was that the handle bar clamp is relatively low to the platform, meaning on bikes with longer head tubes, it will sit quite far above the wheel. Not an issue for smaller frames, but for tall folks it will look and handle oddly.

Personally, I'd get a Cetma over any of the other racks available. I have a custom porteur rack for my bike, but I think the design is much more finicky than the Cetma's. And not as strong. Unlike the pretty porteur racks from lots of companies, the Cetma's are made in the USA, come in several different models, and are hella strong.

The axle and handlebar mount system should also make the Cetma much easier to install and remove once you've done it once.

Looks nicely made, and strong, for sure. Definitely heavier than a standard porteur rack like the Velo-Orange or others, but not enormously so. My biggest concern was that the handle bar clamp is relatively low to the platform, meaning on bikes with longer head tubes, it will sit quite far above the wheel. Not an issue for smaller frames, but for tall folks it will look and handle oddly.

Personally, I'd get a Cetma over any of the other racks available. I have a custom porteur rack for my bike, but I think the design is much more finicky than the Cetma's. And not as strong. Unlike the pretty porteur racks from lots of companies, the Cetma's are made in the USA, come in several different models, and are hella strong.

The axle and handlebar mount system should also make the Cetma much easier to install and remove once you've done it once.

I looked at the Cetma's, they are very nice indeed. I'm not sure if I'll end up liking the porteur style rack, but for the $ it's hard to complain with the Wald.. might just be my starter, if I end up enjoying it I'll pony up for a Cetma.

I have one on my Pugs, as you know. I did some serious surgery on mine, but out of the box it is a nice unit. I used to have a mega sized Wald delivery boy basket on my Schwinn cruiser, and I just loved it. The 257 is burly, as are it's mounting hardware. It can carry plenty of weight unmodified. It is not as useful as a full basket, but if you are looking at porter racks you probably know what they are about. It is well designed and strong like bull. Typical Wald mounting gear: handlebar clamp (two piece and primitive, but painted black and works well) + adjustable steel struts + simple screw hardware. The struts can mount either to a solid axle, a QR axle, or to fork eyelets. For $50 delivered to my door, I cannot complain at all.

I have one on my Pugs, as you know. I did some serious surgery on mine, but out of the box it is a nice unit. I used to have a mega sized Wald delivery boy basket on my Schwinn cruiser, and I just loved it. The 257 is burly, as are it's mounting hardware. It can carry plenty of weight unmodified. It is not as useful as a full basket, but if you are looking at porter racks you probably know what they are about. It is well designed and strong like bull. Typical Wald mounting gear: handlebar clamp (two piece and primitive, but painted black and works well) + adjustable steel struts + simple screw hardware. The struts can mount either to a solid axle, a QR axle, or to fork eyelets. For $50 delivered to my door, I cannot complain at all.

Yer kill'n me here, some pix and a write up puhleeze! Yep, had an old '50 Columbia gas tank "paperboy" with a basket up front & book rack on the rear. It was a great around town bike, I miss it dearly. My DIY rack is strongish, but I don't trust it, the guy that built it is a hack and is not to be trusted.

Anwho, post up already will ya... such a tease with that thumbnail picture

It is a Wald 257 that I sawed the back plate off of. I used rack struts from the LBS to attach it to the upper braze ons on my Pug fork. I criss crossed the struts and fastened them at the cross to add side to side stability. I cut the legs off an old Pletscher rear rack I had and used them instead of the supplied steel legs in order to save weight. It worked well enough. I need to improve the clamps I used to attach the upper rack struts to the rack - I used what I had lying around and shimmed to fit with rubber strip. There is a lot of play in this set-up, but it works fine for the loads I carry. The toe strap keeps the rack from sagging in the back when weighed down. Turbo ghetto, I know. The back of the Wald 257 and the handlebar attachment add a lot of up/down + side-side stability to this rack. I needed to get an iBert on here for carrying around the little one...it was quite a sacrifice, though. If you use this rack unmodified it will be burly as hell. Not a rack I would pilot into the wood, though. It is very wide as you can see.

It is a Wald 257 that I sawed the back plate off of. I used rack struts from the LBS to attach it to the upper braze ons on my Pug fork. I criss crossed the struts and fastened them at the cross to add side to side stability. I cut the legs off an old Pletscher rear rack I had and used them instead of the supplied steel legs in order to save weight. It worked well enough. I need to improve the clamps I used to attach the upper rack struts to the rack - I used what I had lying around and shimmed to fit with rubber strip. There is a lot of play in this set-up, but it works fine for the loads I carry. The toe strap keeps the rack from sagging in the back when weighed down. Turbo ghetto, I know. The back of the Wald 257 and the handlebar attachment add a lot of up/down + side-side stability to this rack. I needed to get an iBert on here for carrying around the little one...it was quite a sacrifice, though. If you use this rack unmodified it will be burly as hell. Not a rack I would pilot into the wood, though. It is very wide as you can see.

As I feared, I love it! Damn you and your ingenious mounting solutions... could you imagine the two of us hacking the hell out of stuff?

In my case, I don't care about the weight and only will use around town to haul random junk.